Note: This is a Foundation unit in Analysis, History and Culture studies.

This course introduces students to the different ways of thinking about music that bind together our Conservatorium culture. It is a course concerned with 'big' questions: What exactly is a musical work? What do we hear when music is played? How do we go about making new music and how do we make old music new again? In grappling with these questions, students learn how to formulate persuasive arguments about the nature of music in general and the significance of musical works and artists in particular. The course is broken into four three-week episodes: Talking about Music, Making Music, Listening to Music and Learning about Music. Lectures from performers, composers, music educators and musicologists comprise each of these episodes and cover the wide variety of music genres and approaches to music making taught at the Conservatorium. As students hone their philosophical positions in relation to the course's 'big' questions, they are therefore simultaneously introduced to the constellation of ideas that constitute our musical world.

Note: This is a Foundation unit in Analysis, history and culture studies.

This unit surveys some of the major developments in the history of western classical music from the Medieval period to the present, and relates them to broader historical and artistic trends. In addition to analysing individual musical works, students will engage with musical historiography and develop a critical understanding of some influential techniques of music analysis.

Music has been dramatically shaped and reshaped by every major change in communications technology in the 20th century from vinyl discs to spotify. In this unit of study we will analyse such issues as the ways in which the early recording industry transformed jazz, the blues and country music, how the presentation of music on radio and television changed the ways the music industry created new musical celebrities, and the challenges the music industry faces as digital technology transforms the creation, distribution and consumption of music.

Through an integrated and research-based approach to music composition and analysis, student's knowledge of music theory and compositional techniques is extended. Skills in this area cover a range of musical styles including classical music (past and present), jazz, popular music and film music. The Written tutorials build on the topics covered in the lectures. The Aural tutorials develop the students ability to listen musically and critically.

An introduction to basic music literacy skills, including learning to read and write music, and an understanding of fundamental aspects of its structure and composition. The material covered in this unit of study concentrates upon the basics of music theory and listening to ensure that participants have a solid grounding for a firm understanding of music notation and organisation.

A more advanced exploration of music literacy skills than MUSC1503. The material covered in this unit of study ranges from the broad to the specific: from an examination of musical elements and the way they are used in a variety of musical genres through to specific compositional aspects such as four-part writing. Analysis and compositional craft regarding melody, harmony and rhythm in classical and contemporary popular music are a central focus of this unit of study. Critical listening skills are developed in this unit of study.

This unit of study offers an integrated approach to live music performance that includes practical and research components. Students participate in solo and ensemble situations in weekly in-class concerts. Constructive feedback by peers is a significant part of this course and participants trace their own development in weekly reflective journals. Music of all genres (including classical, experimental, popular, jazz and world music), instruments and voice types are accepted, and collaboration across musical traditions is strongly encouraged. A number of seminars dealing with specific key issues are interspersed throughout this unit of study, including performance stress, technical and psychological preparation, ensemble communication and audience perception. Auditions are held during O-Week. This audition consists of two contrasting pieces and a short interview. To be offered an audition, please enroll in this unit of study before O-Week and you will be automatically contacted with all relevant details. If you enroll during or after O-Week, please email the unit coordinator to arrange an alternative audition time.

Ensemble Performance builds on the experience and skills cultivated in Music Performance. Students participate regularly in weekly rehearsal-workshops where ideas are tried out with the participation of peers and the Unit of Study coordinator. Students participate in various ensembles of different sizes, collaborating in a multiplicity of musical genres. This is a highly practical and challenging subject that encourages students to collaborate in a supportive and productive environment. Ensemble Performance culminates with a large-scale public performance in a public venue.

Note: 18 credit points of 1000-level units from any discipline or faculty.

An opportunity to create a new composition in a supported environment. Students will hear their works rehearsed and performed, usually by other participating students. The outcome is a performance in a public concert at the end of the semester. The workshops may be themed around particular genres and musical techniques such as music theatre, drone-based composition, song-writing, sound and rhythm, creating a sound space and media composition.

This unit focuses not just on music but also on 'noise' and sounds both natural and man-made. By means of in-class experiments, field trips and 'audio diaries', students will explore the nature of sound; by means of lectures, readings and discussion, they will examine the many ways in which human beings engage - negatively as well as positively - with the sonic world around them.

This course examines the powerful link between jazz and moments of social revolution in the United States. It illuminates the central role jazz musicians like Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus and Max Roach played in changing hearts, minds and social structures during four distinct historic periods: the Harlem Renaissance, the post-War 1940s, the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and the Black Nationalist movement of the 1960s. Its central focus is on how music can both ride and resist the political energies that charge particular historic moments.

This unit of study introduces students to philosophical questions about music and to thinking about music with philosophical methodology. The course visits some of the questions which have perplexed musicians and philosophers alike: How are beauty and music related? What does music tell us about time? What is a musical work? How do we listen? Is music related to language? This course enables all students of music and the liberal arts to understand music as a philosophically distinctive phenomenon.

Psychology of Music examines music cognition and behaviour to explore the way music is created, produced and perceived. This unit will introduce recent interdisciplinary research as a way to explore music as a social activity. It will consider the methods used by sociologists and psychologists to investigate music and encourage students to think conceptually about their own musical activities.

This unit will teach students how to analyse the structure of song in diverse cultures drawing on both language and musical perspectives. Songs play many different roles in cultures. For example, they can be a form of entertainment, a tool to influence the world and transmit knowledge; and an expression of religion, identity and a national culture. This unit will engage students with the question of why people sing. It will consider the impact of literacy and the notion of the 'professional' singer/composer, which are absent in many societies.

Note: An ability to read music at a basic level and an understanding of fundamental musical terminology is an advantage in this unit of study.

This unit is an introduction to the use of digital sound and music in creative and multimedia contexts. It is a practical course in which students are introduced to tools of sound creation and manipulation. Students will undertake creative projects as a means to learning. In addition, participants will be exposed to a number of approaches to electroacoustic music across the 20th and 21st centuries.

How did early American blues and country music develop in tandem? How was punk different in the US, the UK and Australia? What are the origins of the DJ culture? This unit of study presents a thematic overview of a wide variety of styles, movements and spectacles. It examines major genres of popular music, their stylistic features and historical antecedents as well as modes of reception and the role of popular music in everyday life. No formal music training is necessary.

This unit is an introductory survey of the history and aesthetics of film music from the late 1890s to the present day. Topics for discussion will include the dramatic function of music as an element of cinematic narrative, the codification of musical iconography in cinematic genres, the symbolic use of pre-existing music, and the evolving musical styles of film composers.

The range of media channels through which we experience popular music has proliferated in recent years. The emotive power of music is used to tell stories, sell products and connect people to one another. This unit of study will analyse the use of popular music in a broad range of multimedia forms from film and television to video games and the use of digital media to disseminate a multitude of musical multimedia productions.

How did the music of enslaved and marginalised people eventually become a dominant force in contemporary popular culture? This unit will examine the local reinvention of a wide variety of African American music in communities around the world. From soul and funk in West Africa to ska and reggae in the Caribbean, we will examine how music moves around the world and within local communities to make new forms of meaning.

The history of Australian popular music presents us with a long and complex heritage. It reflects, in its very constitution, the lives of those who create it and is underscored by the dynamic relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia. This unit of study will explore the continuing experience and influence of a wide range of music made in Australia, from songlines to bush ballads and dance anthems, Countdown and Rage. We will examine the folk revival of the 50s, pub rock of the 70s, reggae, punk and indie rock of the 80s and 90s as well as the emergence of the multiplicity of styles and expressions that mark the contemporary Australian music scene.

Through an integrated and research-based approach to music composition and analysis, student's knowledge of music theory and compositional techniques is extended. Skills in this area cover a range of musical styles including classical music (past and present), jazz, popular music and film music. The Written tutorials build on the topics covered in the lectures. The Aural tutorials develop the students ability to listen musically and critically.

The culmination of the Fundamentals of Music series, this unit of study is an exploration of musical language used in contemporary popular, film and world music repertoire from ca. 1960 to the present. The focus is on compositional techniques, analytical tools and workflow that relates to contemporary music practitioners. Lectures will examine the given topic for that week with references to examples drawn from a list of repertoire for that topic. These examples will be discussed further in the written tutorials and supported by weekly homework. An important outcome of this unit of study is the final assignment, in which students apply the knowledge accrued over the semester in an original composition, which they also analyse. Aural Tutorials will draw on these topics to develop skills relating to the student's ability to perceive and interpret musical elements and procedures.

Note: A good working knowledge of musical terminology and vocabulary is required.

This unit of study deals with the different ways in which we comprehend music and with the different ways in which that comprehension might be explained. It deals with modes of hearing and musical analysis for the purpose of leading students towards a deeper knowledge of how music in various genres (ranging from the classical mainstream to the twentieth-century avant-garde, from Tin Pan Alley songs to punk rock and hip-hop) is understood. This is a required unit of study for a music major in an Arts degree.

Note: Students who do not meet the pre-requisite may seek special permission from the subject co-ordinator

This unit is an advanced exploration of digital sound and music in creative and multimedia contexts. It is a subject in which students are expected to make sophisticated use of sound creation and manipulation tools in pursuit of their own musical ideas. Students will undertake creative projects as a means to learning. An ability to read music at a basic level and an understanding of fundamental musical terminology is an advantage in this unit of study.

What do we study when we study music? What kinds of stories do we tell about the history of music? What are the central issues, questions, and concerns that drive the study of music? This unit of study begins to answer these questions and provides an overview of musicology as an academic discipline. The readings cover the field of musicology from its beginnings in the 1880s up to the present day.

Note: Student must have completed 48 credit points of 1000-level units or ask for permission from the coordinator.

Every musical form worldwide exists within a tradition, and globalization has been crucial in shaping those traditions in the contemporary era. This course explores different ways that musical traditions and globalization intersect. It introduces key theoretical approaches to both globalization (including postcolonial perspectives) and the concept of musical tradition, and explores case studies including social media and music in the Pacific Islands, East African hip-hop, understanding globalization's influence on indigenous Australian musical traditions and historically informed Western art music performance.

What can we learn from non-textual approaches to understanding music? The primary goal of this unit of study is to study music not as a composer, producer, performer, listener or audience member, but as an ethnographer. That is, analysing music through an observational, experiential and intellectual understanding of how people make and take meaning from music.

The range of media channels through which we experience, popular music has prolifereated in recent years. The emotive power of music is used to tell stories, sell products and connect people to one another. This unit will analyse the use of popular music in a broad range of multimedia forms from film and television to video games and the use of digital media to disseminate a multitude of musical multimedia productions.

The act of performing music creates a multitude of social relationships between listeners, audiences, musicians, performers, and the industries and institutions that surround them. This subject will ask students to study acts of performance historically, theoretically, and observationally. They will examine a wide range of situations and circumstances and try to work out how the expression of music is also an expression, affirmation, and contestation of social power. This subject will appeal to those who wish to study subjects such as music, performance studies, sociology, anthropology, and gender and cultural studies. It cuts across all of these areas of inquiry in the attention that is paid to the complexity and subtlety of how music is perceived and experienced across multiple social scenes and communities. This subject is not about performance practice or assessment. Instead, it seeks to allow students to gain some insight into the experience of performance as multifaceted and perspectival.

Even as the 'Age of Newspapers' seems to be coming to an end, human beings' need for authoritative commentary on music remains as strong as ever. Along with surveying the history of music journalism from the early eighteenth century up to the present day, this unit of study offers participants the chance to try their hands at various forms of music journalism.

Latin American music has become a powerful force in today's music industry, but its rich diversity and cultural contexts are not always known or acknowledged. This unique unit of study surveys a number of Latin American popular, folk and indigenous musical traditions in terms of their cultural milieu and historical development. These include Afro-Cuban traditions, samba, salsa, tango and Andean music. Various musical, historical and cultural concerns are examined alongside a practical and creative involvement with the compositional characteristics and the repertoire pertinent to these traditions.

Note: A good working knowledge of musical terminology and vocabulary is required.

This unit of study deals with the different ways in which we comprehend music and with the different ways in which that comprehension might be explained. It deals with modes of hearing and musical analysis for the purpose of leading students towards a deeper knowledge of how music in various genres (ranging from the classical mainstream to the twentieth-century avant-garde, from Tin Pan Alley songs to punk rock and hip-hop) is understood. This is a required unit of study for a music major in an Arts degree.

Note: Students will submit project preferences, however first preference placements cannot be guaranteed.

This unit is designed for third year students to undertake a project that allows them to work with one of the university's industry and community partners. Students will work in teams on a real-world problem provided by the partner. This experience will allow students to apply their academic skills and disciplinary knowledge to a real world issue in an authentic and meaningful way. Participation in this unit will require students to submit an application.